The people listed above
all figure prominently in the story of the '45. The list is not complete.
Some readers will feel we
should have included this character or omitted that one. We make no guarantee
to act upon suggestions but invite you to contribute your thoughts about this
page or any part of the site.

The Seven Men of
Moidart are
mentioned in every history of the period although with the exception of one man,
their presence had little bearing on the campaign.

1. William,
Duke of Atholl was almost sixty. He had supported the Jacobites in
both the '15 and the '19 and was deprived of his estates at Blair Atholl, in
favour of his younger brother James, for his trouble. He died in the Tower of
London on 9 July 1746.

2.Aeneas MacDonald, the only other of Scottish birth, was a banker.
He missed Culloden having been sent to Barra to collect a consignment of
Spanish money. He was captured, eventually released and died in the French
Revolution.

3. Sir
Thomas Sheridan,
the Prince's elderly tutor who was over seventy years of
age in 1745. Sheridan was sent back to Rome to keep King James up to date with
events and died of a fit in 1746.

4. Francis
Strickland the only Englishman of the seven. Francis Strickland is reputed to have died ‘of
a dropsy’ in Carlisle.

5. Parson George
Kelly who was sent to France with news of the Jacobite victory at
Prestonpans. He joined the Prince in exile in Paris and died in 1762.

6. Sir John
MacDonald, a cavalry officer in the French forces. Sir John was appointed
‘Instructor of Cavalry’ in the Jacobite forces. There was never much cavalry
to instruct and MacDonald’s post seems to have been somewhat nominal. He kept
a journal throughout the campaign and so if for no other reason it is fortunate
for historians that he was there. MacDonald was captured at Culloden. He
claimed French citizenship and was eventually exchanged for English prisoners.

7. John William
O’Sullivan, an Irishman whose opinions the Prince came to greatly and
perhaps foolishly value. O’Sullivan was born in County Kerry in about 1700.
His parents sent him to Paris and then Rome with a view to him entering the
priesthood. After spending some time as a tutor in a French military household
he abandoned a life in the church and took up soldiering. Quite when he met
Prince Charles is not clear but they became friends and O’Sullivan was to play
a prominent part in the ’45. He escaped to France and married
Louise Fitzgerald, a woman of some means, in 1749. He died in the early 1760s.

Clan MacDonald was generally
sympathetic to the Prince's cause even if not all came out fighting.

The Prince spent his first two weeks in
Britain on board ship or at Borrodale, a house owned by Angus MacDonald. During
his flight from Culloden the Prince once again took up
residence in Borrodale's house prior to the voyage to Benbeccula. On
arriving back on the mainland in July Charles once again relied on the loyalty
of Borrodale and both he, his son John and his son-in-law Angus MacEachine
provided help and shelter.

MacDonald
of Boisdale

Alexander MacDonald of Boisdale was the half
brother of the clan chiefMacDonald
of Clanranald and held the island of.Eriskay on his behalf. Boisdale was
shocked that the Prince had arrived with so little support and left him in no
doubt as to his opinion, which was that he should return home. He also warned
the Prince that neither of the great Skye clan chiefs, MacDonald of Sleat nor
MacLeod of MacLeod were likely to provide the rising with support. Boisdale did
not 'come out' for the Prince but both he and his wife provided Charles and his
companions with some help during their fugitive period in the Hebrides.

Clanranald

The Clanranald MacDonalds fought
throughout the campaign and were amongst the first to offer support to the rising
mainly through the influence of Clanranald's son 'Young Clanranald' During the
time the Prince spent on the run in the islands both Clanranald and his wife
'Lady Clan' provided shelter and food on several occasions. It was Lady Clan who
provided the blue and white dress that Prince Charles wore during his escape
'Over the sea to Skye'.

The MacDonalds of Keppoch were
also early supporters rallying to the standard at Glenfinnan. A little later the
MacDonells of Glengarry offered men as the Jacobite army marched through their
glen.

Donald
Cameron of Lochiel was19th Chief of Clan Cameron,
‘The Gentle Lochiel’, as he is often known, was born in 1695 and was an
ardent Jacobite. However, to begin with he was not prepared to commit his clan
to the cause unless Prince Charles landed with 10,000 French troops
and adequate supplies of arms and money.

Quite how Lochiel was coerced into offering
support is not clear. Charles probably convinced him of forthcoming French,
Welsh and English support. It is also likely that the strength of
Charles's character influenced Lochiel. The Prince’s assertion that should
Lochiel decline to join him he, 'May stay
at home and learn from the newspapers the fate of his Prince' perhaps had a
bearing on his decision to join the rising.

Lochiel had great influence in the Highlands and without his support the rising
would probably fizzled out before it had begun.

Lochiel fought throughout the campaign and was
injured in both ankles at Culloden. He escaped from the field and made his way home only to see his lands laid waste and his house burned to the
ground. He escaped to France with Prince Charles and died there in 1748.

Ewan Macpherson of Cluny enters
the story early in the campaign and remained loyal to Prince Charles to the end.
He was serving in the government militia when an early raid captured him. It is possible that the event may have
been arranged beforehand as Cluny does not seem to have been too upset. He
quickly promised to raise his
clan in support. After the victory at Prestonpans Cluny found another four hundred men
Jacobite recruits.

The
Macphersons were the prominent clan in the Jacobite victory at Clifton, just south of Penrith on 18 Dec. The
government dragoons were driven off by the ferocity of the Highlanders’ attack. The Duke of
Cumberland lost forty or fifty dead and wounded and five Highlanders were
killed.

In
March 1746 an effort was made to retake Blair
Castle as it had fallen into government hands. Three
hundred Macpherson made the attack along with seven hundred of the Atholl Brigade. The
attack was unsuccessful and the Atholl men returned to Inverness. Cluny's men
were left to guard the passes in Badenoch and as such arrived at Culloden too late to take part in the
battle

After
the battle Cluny escaped into the wilderness of Ben Alder where he
constructed a secure hiding place now referred to as 'Cluny's Cage'.
The Cage was a primitive, two story shelter
constructed from boulders and timber. It was hidden in a thicket of trees and was reasonably comfortable.After
his adventures in the western isles Prince Charles'
final hiding place was the Cage. Cluny reasoned that if no ship could be found to
take Charles to France then it would be possible to spend the winter
undiscovered in this hideout.

Lord George
Murray, at fifty
years old, was a younger brother of William, Duke of Atholl. He was exiled after taking part in the Jacobite
risings of 1715 and 1719. When pardoned in 1725 he returned to live on his
estates at Tullibardine. In 1739 he took oaths of allegiance
to King George and for a time seemed to be sharing the views of his Hanoverian
brother James. However, Murray maintained his Jacobite sympathies and on 3
September declared his support for the Stuarts.
Prince Charles recognised Murray's value and granted him the rank of Lieutenant-General and Deputy Commander of the
Jacobite forces. However, because of his previous involvement with the
government, Murray's relationship with the Prince was never an
easy one.Murray had an
arrogant manner, a quick temper and was not well liked by others in the
Prince's inner circle. After Culloden Lord George eventually escaped to Holland
where he died at Medemblik on 11 October 1760.

James Drummond, Duke of Perth (32) was recruited
at the same time as Lord George Murray and also given the rank of Lieutenant-General.
The Duke fought throughout the
campaign commanding the left of the front line at Culloden. His brother Lord
John Drummond also fought at Culloden.
Both escaped on a French ship on 3 May but the Duke of Perth died before the ship arrived safely in France.

Lord Elcho was a year younger
than Prince Charles. They had first met as youths in Rome and enjoyed each
other's company. Elcho joined the '45 in Edinburgh and was made aide de camp.
Elcho escaped to France with the Prince and
died in Paris in1787.

In Falkirk Charles stayed with Kilmarnock
at Callendar House.
The Earl was in serious financial difficulties and, possibly feeling he had
little to lose and perhaps much to gain, offered Prince Charles his support. Kilmarnock’s inability to bring men, other than his personal servants
into the army, perhaps illustrates the relative lack Jacobite support in the
lowlands. Kilmarnock was beheaded on Tower Hill on 18 August 1746.

In
Manchester a regiment of perhaps 300 recruits was formed under the command
of Francis Townley who had joined the Prince in Lancaster. The credit for
recruiting many of these men goes, according to the Chevalier de Johnstone, to Sergeant Dickson who went ahead in order to generate support for the
Prince's cause. Dickson had been captured at Prestonpans and come over
to the Jacobite side. He marched into Manchester accompanied only by his
mistress and a drummer. A crowd gathered, intent on taking him prisoner but he defied them with his blunderbuss and was rescued by Jacobite
supporters. The
escapade produced jokes against the city to the effect that Manchester had been
taken 'by a sergeant, a drummer and a
girl'.

On the retreat north the Manchester regiment
was left to garrison Carlisle but the
city fell to the Duke of Cumberland on 30
December. The defenders were taken prisoner and many of them eventually paid the
price of supporting the Jacobite cause with theirlives. Townley was hung, drawn and quartered on Kennington Common,
London on 30 July 1746. He was thirty-eight years old.

Ned Burke was the Prince's personal
servant and escaped from Culloden with his master. He traveled to
the Hebrides and eventually parted company with Charles towards the end of June.
Burke went to North Uist, where he almost starved. He
was never captured and eventually returned to his former occupation of carrying
one end of a sedan chair in Edinburgh. He died in the capital on November 13
1751.

Flora MacDonald was born at Milton on South
Uist in 1772. Her step-father was Hugh MacDonald of Armadale in Skye. Armadale
was a captainin thegovernment
militia but was a Jacobite sympathiser He proposed that the Prince be
transported to Skye disguised as Flora's maid, Betty Burke and so on 28 June,
Neil MacEachain, Flora and the Prince embarked for Skye. They made
landfall on the Trotternish peninsula at a place now called ‘Prince
Charlie's Point.' From there the group walked to Monkstadt, a house owned by
Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat. Sleat had not ‘come out’ for the Prince
but fortunately was away serving the government in Fort Augustus. Sir Alexander’s

Low Cloud over
Monkstadt

wife, Lady Margaret, was a Jacobite but was at a loss as how to help.
A suggestion was made that the Prince should be smuggled to the neighbouring island of
Raasay and then back to the mainland where he could hope for more help.

The Prince still dressed as Betty Burke reached MacDonald of Kingsburgh's
house and spent the night there. Flora parted company with Charles as he sailed
for Raasay. The island had been pillaged
as retribution after Culloden and Charles returned to Skye the next day,
desperate for help.

After some discussion the Prince made for Elgol where he could expect a sympathetic reception and so it was
John Mackinnon who accompanied Charles on the
hazardous sea voyage across the Sound of Sleat to the mainland at
Mallaig.

After
parting company Flora and the Prince were never to see each other again. Their
association had lasted just twelve days. She was arrested and imprisoned in London.
On 4 July 1747 Flora was freed and returned to Scotland where she married
Kingsburgh's son, Allan MacDonald. The couple left
Scotland to live in North Carolina but after
some years returned to Skye. Flora MacDonald died at the age of 68 on March 4
1790 and is buried at Kilmuir on Trotternish. An imposing monument

Flora's
Grave

stands above
her grave. The cross is inscribed with the words, ‘Flora
MacDonald. Preserver of Prince Charles Edward Stuart. Her name will be mentioned
in history and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.

Alexander MacDonald of Kingsburgh helped
Prince Charles evade capture while he was on Skye. At the time Charles was
disguised as Flora MacDonald's maid 'Betty Burke'. The party reached
Kingsburgh's house where Charles slept well in a bed, the first he had slept in
for many weeks. Kingsburgh was arrested for his
part in aiding the rising and eventually ended up a prisoner in Edinburgh
Castle. After being released on July 4, 1747 he returned to the manageent of
his lands on Skye and died in 1772 at the age of eighty-three.

Captain
Felix O'Neil was an Irishman in the service of France. O'Neil
accompanied the Prince from the Battlefield of Culloden and was one of the party
to escape with him from the mainland to the western isles. He remained with
Prince Charles until His Royal Highness sailed for Skye with Flora MacDonald.
O'Neil then tried to make his own escape but was capturedand taken to Edinburgh Castle from where he was released on
parole in 1747.

Neil
MacEachain was introduced to Prince Charles by MacDonald of Clanranald. He was
tutor to Clanranald's children. He guided the Prince to Corradale, a remote glen
on the island of South Uist where Charles and his companions spent three fairly
happy weeks in reasonable comfort. They had enough to eat and Charles had
sufficient brandy to drink. MacEachain accompanied the Prince on his hazardous
travels in the islands and as there was a pass provided for him and he could
speak Gaelic fled 'over the sea to Skye' with Charles and Flora MacDonald. In
Portree MacEachain
said goodbye to the Prince and eventually made his own escape
to France.

Extract
from "Walking With Charlie"

Glen
Corradale is defended from the west, north and south by hefty mountains and from
the east by magnificent cliffs dropping sheer into the sea. My point of access
was to be the miniature beach at the entrance to the glen and once we were close
the dinghy was heaved over the side for the final approach. John Joseph and I
climbed in and paddled to the shore. We had to scale a short but steep incline
into the glen proper and there it was stretched out before us with the
mist-capped, magnificent mountains glowering over us as though they were irritated that we had penetrated the glen without struggling and sweating our
way over the protective peaks.

The
Prince's Cave, Corradale

John
Joseph led me to the
‘Prince’s Cave’. It is on the northern side of the glen, not many yards
from the shore and reasonably easy to locate. I imagine that the cavern was
utilized as a shelter or as a storehouse occasionally but it would make a poor
home for several men for three weeks. It definitely does not meet Alexander
MacDonald’s description of his Highness taking refuge in ‘his famous
palace of Coridale (the house in the forest).’ End

When Prince Charles reached the west coast
after his escape from Culloden he entertained the notion that he might throw
himself on the mercy of either MacDonald of Sleat or MacLeod of MacLeod the two
great Skye chiefs, neither of whom had supported

Galtrigill,
Isle of Skye

the rising. Donald MacLeod of
Galtrigill on Skye talked him out of this course of action. It was MacLeod who
piloted the boat taking Charles away from the mainland to land on Benbecula at
the start of his wanderings in the Hebrides. He stayed with the Prince until 20
June and was captured on Benbecula on 5
July. MacLeod was eventually taken to London and was not released until 10 July
1747 when he returned to Skye where he died on 8 September 1749.

I
travelled by road, east along Loch Claunie to the Ceannacroc Bridge near the
confluence of the rivers Doe and Moriston. A track through the valley of the Doe
leads four miles into the Ceannacroc Forest to a couple of bridges near the
confluence of the Allt Coire Mheadhoin and the Allt Coire Sgreumh that together
make up the Doe. The route follows the course ofthe Allt Coire Mheadhoin to another bridge from where there is neither
track nor footpath but I continued to follow the burn west through sodden
moorland into the corrie containing ‘Prince Charlie’s Cave’. The corrie is
enormous and finding the cave was difficult. I searched everywhere, left to
right, high and low, searching out the most unlikely clefts in the rock face,
all to no avail. Time was running out for I had to return over the same route.
In the end I even began to doubt that I was in the correct corrie and with a
heavy heart and even heavier legs I gave up.

It
was not until the following spring that I had a chance to try again and this
time I took some local advice. It turned out that I had been searching for the
cave according to my preconceived and unfortunately incorrect ideas. I had
expected to find the cave in the face of the corrie and presumed I should find
its mouth facing me as I walked to the end of the glen. Wrong! The cave is
simply a large space conveniently formed by the rolling together of several huge
boulders as they split off from the cliff face thousands of years ago. Had I
read Blaikie’s ‘Itinerary’ in detail before I began my search the task
would have been easier. Before my second visit I learned that the hiding place
is ‘a cavern formed by the great masses
of rock at the bottom of a talus (scree) from
the hill above ~ in fact a cavity in a cairn of stones.’

A plaque ‘In
Memory of the Seven Men of Glenmoriston’ has been placed here in recent
years informing the visitor that the object of the hard day’s walking has at
last been discovered. The inscription names the men, with the exception of
MacMillan, and describes them as ‘hosts
and protectors of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in this cave between 28 July and
1 August 1746 and were not tempted by the rewards offered to betray him to his
enemies.’ It continues, ‘A great
sum of money or reward did not cause them to betray me. The memory of these
devoted men will go down to generations yet unborn.’ On the left of the
clump of boulders is a cleft that also offers access to the dark interior and to
the right is a hole out of which trickles the ‘finest
purling stream’ of MacDonald’s narrative. The man must have had an
ironic sense of humour for although the cave would certainly provide shelter
from wind, rain and prying redcoat eyes, it is difficult to see how Prince
Charles could be ‘as comfortably lodged
as if he had been in a royal palace.’

On
July 5 John Mackinnon accompanied Prince Charles on his sea journey from Elgol
on Skye to Mallaig on the mainland. He stayed with the Prince for five days
during which time attempts were made to find a 'safe house'. After being
refused further help by both Clanranald and MacDonald of Morar H.R.H. at last
found sanctuary with Angus MacDonald of Borrodale. Mackinnon returned home
but legend has it that before he left the Prince handed him the recipe for the liqueur
now known as Drambuie. Mackinnon was captured as he landed at Elgol and remained
in custody until July 1747.